Terminator - Sarah Connor Chronicles
To support the launch tomorrow of Terminator - Sarah Connor Chronicles in the UK, Virgin Media are doing some fun things. According to NMA, they have a microsite, banners/overlays, OOH posters and lots of TV ads. (why don’t the NMA ever put links into their online articles)
The main Virgin1 site has the first episode up for review as well as some Behind the Scene videos and extra information, if you haven’t already overdosed on spoilers and information coming out of the US where the series has been on air since the beginning of the year. The supporting site, Terminate a Mate, is where they have some fun, utilising mobile (or email) for a personal experience. Add you and your friends details and you can get a video delivered to your phone warning you that the Terminator is tracking you and knows where you are. It uses the network cells to trace where you physically are, showing you a map of your current location. I was slightly disappointed to find the system was about 1 mile out for me, instead of the reaction I should have which was ‘damn, that’s a good use of these tools’. It is really a good use and the speed of turnaround, delivering the personalised video in a minute or so is impressive. The email version sends whatever message you type in, not quite as much fun as the mobile version, but good if you want to say something extra special to a friend.
I’ve see they have learnt from a similar campaign last year for Dexter, where personalised video caused some upset. The text you get with the video link states that they network is providing the location, I guess so that people don’t get too paranoid that the Terminator is really after them and using the phone network to track them (we should just leave that to the intelligence services). A great use of the device, something I expect to see a lot of this year as marketing and digital agencies really get to grip with what they are capable of.
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POSTED IN: Entertainment Marketing, Mobile Marketing, TV, Viral Marketing
4 opinions for Terminator - Sarah Connor Chronicles
Bobby C
Feb 21, 2008 at 10:35 am
I did this the other day to my mate. It was pretty accurate for him. It showed the full street he was on but it proper freaked him out.
Even if it is a mile, it’s still mad that people can do this to your phone. Well cool.
Rachel
Feb 21, 2008 at 11:00 am
I tried it somewhere else and it was pretty accurate. Just depends on the cell phone towers I guess. I do love it as an idea.
Johnson
Feb 21, 2008 at 11:04 am
The clever Terminator mobile stuff was done by the same bods who also did the Dexter thing first (and better inho) for CSI. Hope Terminator lives up to the hype tonite.
Rachel
Feb 21, 2008 at 11:08 am
That makes sense, especially of the changes/warnings so you know it’s not ‘real’. The programme itself has had mixed reviews, starting off with 18million viewers but dropped down to about 8m. It has been one of the few original programmes on TV in the US over the last few months, so probably got higher than expected
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